Behind Enemy Lines: West Virginia Offense

It’s time for homecoming in Stillwater and the Mountaineers of West Virginia (AP no. 10, Coaches no. 9) will be in town trying to spoil the show. Fresh off handing TCU their worst loss since joining the conference (34-10 loss) and rambling it’s way to a 6-0 record, it’s time for some big boy football in Stillwater.

WVU is one of two teams in the country (with Baylor) to have a top 10 offense in yardage and a top 15 scoring defense, a sign of a well-rounded of a team. That may seem unusual as head coach Dana Holgorsen is known for his high flying offenses, but his defenses have been on the rise over the last few years under defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, progressing from 27.6 points per game in 2014 to 24.6 points per game in 2015 and now 17.8 so far in 2016.  

Let’s take a closer look.

WVU Offense

Dana and the Mountaineers run the “air raid offense” (of course) but with a different focus. Recently when asked about the Texas Tech-OU game, Coach Holgorsen talked about how WVU has changed over the years from when they “weren’t in a very good place defensively, so (WVU) changed a lot of things to avoid that both offensively and defensively.”

The mix of the offense has been 55 percent run to 45 percent pass this year, leaning more towards ball control, shortening the game and giving the other offense less opportunity.  

In his third year on the job, senior quarterback Skyler Howard really has the system down and has improved a lot since he was in the rotation as a sophomore. Holgorsen talked about how a couple of things have really made a difference for him: his leadership skills and completion percentage increases. Completing 66.5 percent of his passes, Howard has cranked up the efficiency and to boot, is a real threat to run it himself (200 yards and three rushing touchdowns on the season).

Howard has a bevy of weapons at receiver, but the most prolific is redshirt junior Shelton Gibson. Gibson is as solid of a deep threat as there is in the league, a handful for the Cowboy secondary. The Mountaineers have a deep wide receiver core, behind Gibson is Dakiel Shorts, a consistent threat with 31 catches and almost 500 yards, and junior college transfer Ka’Raun White who had this incredible catch against TCU last week.

Running back Rushel Shell is a load out of the backfield for WVU when he cuts hard and runs downhill. The 5’10”, 225 pound back averages 4.84 yards on 16 carries per game and is who gets the ball when they need a yard. You get the sense from the Mountaineer fan base that he is sort of their “Chris Carson,” polarizing as a highly-recruited transfer and questionable if he’s meeting expectations or not.

The committee behind him is led by former junior college All-American Justin Crawford, a big play threat who is the lightning to Shell’s thunder. Freshman Kennedy McKoy comes in as a change of pace back, but the bulk of carries will belong to the upperclassmen.

The offensive line for WVU isn’t your typical zone/pass protection air raid offensive line. In 2013, Dana brought in a former Stanford offensive line coach, to install more of a power blocking scheme that really helps the Mountaineers run game efforts. The leader is perennial All-Big 12 center Tyler Orlosky but guard Tony Matteo is a really solid road grader for WVU.

They lost their most talented lineman when sophomore left tackle Yodney Cajuste was lost to injury before the year but solid replacements are in place. Former OSU offensive line coach Joe Wickline has been noted as very helpful in solidifying the tackle spots after injury.